Make sure you don't let the baking soda spill into the bottle prematurely.

4. When ready, lift your balloon and let the baking soda fall into the vinegar.

5. Watch as the mixture fizzes, bubbles & expands your balloon!

6. Discuss how the baking soda & vinegar produce a gas which fills the balloon.

7. Repeat! Believe me, your kids will want to do this more than once.

It was lots of fun for the Lil Divas to watch the ingredients combine

and form a reaction that was so visual - blowing up the balloon.

FUN!

The science behind it - Baking soda and the vinegar create an ACID-BASE reaction. When combined/mixed they create a gas - carbon dioxide. Gasses need room to spread, so the carbon dioxide fills the bottle and then moves into the balloon inflating it.

** Due to lots of comments left below I feel the need to add (for clarity) that this does NOT produce helium. Carbon Dioxide gas will inflate the balloons but they do not "fly" like helium inflated balloons as it is not the same kind of gas. This is meant to be a fun science experiment/demonstration. **

Awesome. We did this very experiment this week. Then we made a volcano. We also filled one balloon with air, and the other with carbon dioxide and dropped them at the same time to see which one was denser / heavier. A nice add on.

Just a note from a former middle school science teacher: Heavier things don't fall any faster than lighter things. Laws of physics are often baffling! If you want to test to see which is heavier, you can tape each balloon to the end of a yard stick, suspend the yardstick by a piece of string in the exact middle, (creating a simple balance scale) and see which goes down further.

Just a note from an engineer to the former middle school science teacher....

Recall the hammer and feather experiment done on the moon. This illustrates that the acceleration due to gravity is the same regardless of the mass of the object. So, they should fall at the same rate. They did this on the moon because there is no atmosphere to interfere with the experiment.

In this case the laws concerning buoyancy come into play and must be considered. Assuming equal volume displacement, the balloon filled with air is almost neutrally buoyant with respect to the atmosphere whereas the balloon filled with the more dense carbon dioxide is less buoyant. Given these conditions a CO2 balloon would sink faster due to its buoyancy, not its mass.

Baking soda can lose effectiveness with age. Always try to use fresh baking soda for science experiments and baking of course! Older soda is awesome to keep on the kitchen sink for scouring pots and pans because even if it has list its fizz factor, it still is abrasive enough to polish metal!

I just wanted to let you know I featured this at TGIF Linky Party here - http://livinglifeintentionally.blogspot.com/2012/01/tgif-linky-party-13.html - As this is your 2nd feature I have a special button for you!! Email me at livinglifeintentionallyblog @gmail.com to get the code =-) Thanks for sharing your creativing with all of us!!Beth =)

Actually atomic weight wise, it is not lighter than air. So the helpful comment was in no way incorrect. The word dense does not need to be used, Anonymous #2. Also if you are going to nit-pick a reply, make sure your own reply uses punctuation correctly. :)

Unfortunately, I can't give you a specific/definite answer. We inflated our balloons for the purpose of the experiment/demonstration. My girls played with the balloons that day and inevitably popped them. We did not use them as decoration so they weren't around long enough for me to know how much time they would remain full of air. Sorry I can't be of more help.

The acid-base reaction is between the vinegar (acetic acid) and sodium bicarbonate (baking soda) which is a base. The products are neutralized; carbon dioxide and sodium acetate. Very harmless products.

We just formed a volcano to set off later this week. I saw this and was so excited that we can do this to show the gas that the vinegar and baking soda mixture creates!! Sooo cool! My girls love playing with balloons too so I know they will be super excited to see this!!! Thanks for sharing. :)

An extension for this activity could be to take the carbon dioxide gas from the balloon and use it to extinguish a candle flame. You could discuss the three necessary parts to have a fire and how many fire extinguishers utilize carbon dioxide to put out fires.

Yes, we did discuss how this combination of vinegar and baking soda creates carbon dioxide (it is in the post above). The great thing was that they experienced firsthand that the balloons do not float like helium filled balloons do! It is a very hands-on and visual experiment which is great! Thank you.

Carbon dioxide is about 11 times heavier than helium, so not only will these NOT float, they tend to stay down. But that by itself is a kind of cool science idea to "float"-- not all gases are the same

My daughter's first sleepover is scheduled for 2 weeks from now. I think this'll be a really fun activity for them to do together (need to keep 'em busy) and then they can decorate her bedroom! So the guests can be the decorating committees!Awesome.idea says Greatful.mom!Thank you!

The reaction just completed before your balloon was full. When the balloon stopped inflating, there was probably vinegar left in the bottle, but no baking soda, right? Just add more baking soda to the balloon next time. It's trial and error to get it right. Good luck!

Another add on would be to:1. release the gas from the balloon into a glass or jar2. light a candle3. "pour" the gas from the glass or jar over the candle flame4. see what happens!Fire needs oxygen to burn. The carbon dioxide from the balloon smothers the candle and doesn't allow any oxygen to get to the flame and puts it out.

sorry about that Aaron. I keep replying trying to clear it up but it's gotten impossible. :( I never mentioned helium as it was not what we were doing but pinterest has made it take on a life of its own.

After sitting here reading all the comments and now doubled over laughing at how many people ask about the helium balloons, I am relieved to read this explanation. I had almost lost all faith in humanity...

Fun Idea. Baking soda and vinegar make an awesome household cleaner/stain remover. Works so much better at removing stains, soap scum, oder, etc. than store bought cleaners. So dump it in a spray bottle and use it around the house after your experiement.

Sodium acetate is all that’s left over from a complete reaction of baking soda and vinegar. Although sodium acetate has many uses, a cleaning agent isn’t one of them.

Vinegar and baking soda are good safe alternatives for cleaning, but there is no point in mixing them. They will just use each other up in the chemical reaction. Used separately they can compete with store bought chemicals, although it can be argued that they don’t necessarily perform better. Cheap and safe, sure…

Bern - I added this on my Spooktacular Smorgasbord of Science & Sensory Ideas - hope that is okay. It is fantastic. http://kindergartenbasics.blogspot.com/2012/10/spooktacular-smorgasboard-of-simple.html

One question, after you've inflated a balloon, and you're ready to inflate another one, do you pour the old mixture out and start over with the 1/3 bottle of vinegar, or can you leave that part in there and just refill the next balloon with more baking soda. (Sorry if you answered this already)

Awesome idea!!! I think its a great one to use at parties, seeing as I just use balloons to pin up & decorate, not float. It'd b something all the kids could get in on BEFORE the party was to start, & that would get my decorating done for me!!! Lol...I have 6 kids (which equals 6 bday parties annually) ....always looking for something fun for them that makes my life easier!!!!

Also...some people need to read before they post!!!! I read about 20 comments asking if it floats...seriously????? Read the instructions!!!!! If that doesn't work for u, its in with the first couple of comments! Jeez!!!

Hahaha! I too could not help shaking my head and giggling at the 'how long do they float' comments, and the hydrogen gas comment? Oh my gosh, ignorance like that highlights precisely why we need to expose children to consistent and accurate lessons in science! I am a preschool teacher and my co-teacher and I were blowing up balloons for a birthday party for another coworker and she asks, "why aren't they floating?" I thought she was kidding until I saw her tossing them in the air and frowning when they didn't stay! Needless to say I started adding more science activities to my lesson plans that very day for the kids and for her benefit as well!

I liked the pictures of those two little girls and i actually did this experiment about two days ago in my chemistry class. It was fun except that some of my friends did not help me with the experiment. -_- :^\

My son did a similar experiment for his science fair project, however we did it with pop rocks and different carbonated beverages. (He was in the fifth grade so they asked us to make the project a little more advanced.) We used cola, diet cola, plain soda, and water (as a control). We made sure there were equal amounts of liquid in each bottle (10 oz i think) and put the entire packet of the pop rocks into the balloon. After 3 minutes we measured th balloons. I won't tell the results so that your kids can figure it out themselves. My son came in third place out of the entire school (and got an A)!

I think a lot of the confusion about weather or not they will float like helium is because people were pinning it on pinterest and saying you don't need helium if you do this! Well... not all of us are scientificly inclined and don't know gasses n junk.

I did this experiment with my babysitting kids (ages 3 and 1). It was great fun for them as well as me!! I'm posting this on my blog, www.kidscreateabooks.blogspot.com also, to share the fun with my readers!

I am so glad that I stumbled upon your blog tonight. I am teaching Matter this week and this experiment will fit in perfectly for tomorrow as we will be focusing on the molecular properties of gas. YAY!!!!!! They will see it in action and I am forwarding this to a friend who is teaching on Matter as well. Yes I'm excited. LOL My husband and I created a song on solids, liquids and gas that may be helpful to your home school. I hope so. You can find it at http://www.mommytheteacher.com/2013/01/first-official-week-back.html

This project is creative and easy. My dad thinks its cool to make a balloon to blow up by using baking soda and vinegar. Children like me love to blow up things, so this is a wonderful project. Plus your daugthers are so cute.

I tried this for my nephews birthday party, it blew it up, but it didnt blow up very big =/ Maybe I didnt have enough baking soda in mine or something, but after an hour or 2, it had done deflated to the size of my palm!

You need to come up with a question before someone can help you with the hypothesis. What the blogger did here was a demonstration or model, not an experiment (NOT something you'd do for the Science Fair). For an experiment (or Science Fair Project), you need variables (things that change). For example, if you were going to turn this into an experiment, you could ask "Does changing the temperature of vinegar affect the rate at which a balloon is filled with carbon dioxide?" A good rule of thumb is to come up with 3 predictions based on your question, then from those predictions, your hypothesis will be the one you think will most likely occur.

Informative read. Should be able to save up quite a bit of effort and breathes. Do you know roughly how much of gas does it produce? Do you have a rough chart of what's the ratio of Gas to baking soda?

1/3 cup of baking soda or washing soda down a drain, followed by 1/3 cup of vinegar makes the best drain cleaner you can use. Repeat 3 or 4 times in one week for slow drains, until the drain is cleared of clogs, then clean them once or twice a month. No more expensive cleaners needed! I went through $15 -$20 worth of commercial cleaners and my shower drain was still too slow, but 3 applications of this concoction has it totally clean and draining better than it ever has in the 10 years we've owned this house!

This is so helpful for children that struggle to blow up a balloon on their own. Thank you so much I have not tried this yet but from what you shared it looks very fun. Like you state it is visually engaging for children to experiment with this new way blowing up balloons.

My boss is leaving my company this Friday. Every year we do something crazy for her office. So for her last day we are going to do everything we have ever done on her last day. So one year we filled her entire office with balloons. We blew everyone of them up! My question for you is...With the amount of soda and vinegar in that small bottle you used about how many regular sized balloons could you blow up before you had to pour out the mixture and start over?

This was posted on FB again by another blogger that linked to your site. I think it's wonderful that you do science experiments with your daughters. I used to teach 2nd grade so I'm going to check out more of your blog. Thanks for showing that science can be fun.

Thank this is cool, we are getting ready for a birthday party and this will fit right into it nothing better than being able to teach kids with out them even knowing it learning while having tons of fun nothing better